Attention – Due To Allegations of Plagiarism, This Article Is Highly SuspectÂ

What would Jesus do is a popular wristband that many Christian youth wear. It is supposed to remind Christians about how they should behave and act in lifeâ€™s situations in the light of the example set by Jesus. So it is interesting to read about the face off between the Roman Catholic Church and the human rights organization Amnesty International where the Catholic Church has advised Catholics not to fund Amnesty. AI currently does not receive any funding from church bodies but individual Catholics do give a fairly large sum to AI and if they were to heed the Vaticanâ€™s advice, the institution would be affected. As is often the case in the West, the issue concerned that of abortion. The Roman Catholic Church is â€œpro-life,â€ which is to say, vehemently anti-abortion as we all know, but no matter what, is it such a great idea â€” given a) its own long history on the wrong side of human rights, and b) its more recent concern with human rights, including opposition to the death penalty â€” to go after Amnesty International for promoting abortion choice is a matter of debate.Â

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It is not as if Amnesty International was setting up of abortion clinics all over the place. They are advocating that abortion as and option or a choice be made available to women who are victims of rape and incest and other such traumatizing experiences. The church says that its stance is absolute on the matter â€“ that the taking of human life, no matter how urgent the situation is always wrong.Â

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It is nobodyâ€™s case that murder is right, that even the murder of an unborn child is right. But however it is a bit painful to see that the church is so concerned about the rights of the unborn that it is so totally insensitive to the rights of the ones who are living and breathing and will live with the scars of the trauma inflicted on them all their lives.Â

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If the question â€œwhat would Jesus doâ€ were to be answered here, Amnesty International, which claims no familiarity or allegiance to Jesus Christ comes through as a more humane, compassionate and caring organization than the church whose head the Pope is presented as the vicar of Christ on earth. The church comes through as cerebral, ideologically correct but aloof and unconcerned about the pain and concerns of those living in the here and now.Â

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After reading about the spat, I could not help wondering about the whole rainbow of human rights and religious rights and the whole gamut of where they converge and where they diverge. This is particularly relevant because most human rights though secular in ethos have their roots in religion but whereas secular human rights seems to have progressed and evolvedÂ religious thinks on rights seems to have frozen up in a medieval theologianâ€™s library.Â

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Where human rights bodies with their passion and religious bodies with their reach join forces, they can be a strong agent of change. The Catholic Church and Amnesty International which take such widely divergent views on abortion now are fighting shoulder on issues like the abolition of the death penalty, the elimination of child soldiers with considerable synergy and success. But the divide on the abortion issue seems unbridgeable.Â

Speaking on the issue in unusually candies terms, Amnesty Internationalâ€™s Deputy general-secretary, Kate Gilmore said: “The Catholic Church, through a misrepresented account of our position on selective aspects of abortion, is placing in peril work on human rights.” She said Amnesty was not promoting abortion as a universal right but stressing that women have a right to choose abortion when their human rights have been violated, particularly in cases of rape and incest. “We are saying broadly that to criminalize women’s management of their sexual reproductive rights is the wrong answer,” she added. “We live alongside people’s life experiences. We don’t run a theocracy. We have to deal with the rape survivor in Darfur who, because she is left with a pregnancy as a result of the enemy, is further ostracized by her community.” How true and how sad that the Cardinals of the Catholic Church arenâ€™t showing this kind of empathy that Jesus would have shown.Â

1 user commented in " Religious Hegemony and Human Rights "

historically any hegemonous outfit have never been human rights oriented.there dictats were never been validated by any measure of right or wrong.catholic church is no different, notwithstanding all the good it has done.human beings have been the victim of its own society, more so in the case of lesser human beings. like marx said it is a story of class struggle. the issue of abortion & the stand taken by the church, is not surprising.the article is well written.

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